What I’m consuming

I haven’t done of these in a while, but I’m currently on travel in Maine and have a little time to work on this. Here is the media and entertainment I’ve been consuming lately.

My education in the Science Fiction and Fantasy “classics” continues, but I took a break to read A Walk in the Woods: Rediscovering America on the Appalachian Trailby Bill Bryson. A very hilarious and thoughtful travelogue of a couple guys ill-fitted for the task of tackling the Appalachian Trail. Hysterical. Another side track I took was to read the classic The Richest Man in Babylon,the gold standard for teaching hard work and personal finance. I think everyone needs to read this book. I’m working on a list of books my kids will read as they grow up and this one will be at the top of that list.

Finally, I got back to the classic. I’m embarassed to say I had never previously read The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.I recognize that HHGTTG has a place in the pantheon of Sci Fi classics, but I felt it was a tad overrated. Just a tad. It was good and had laugh-out-loud moments, but it wasn’t great. I then moved on to The Mote in God’s Eyeby Niven and Pournelle. I know I’m drawing from a shallow well at this point, but Mote is probably the best Sci Fi novel I’ve read. A story of the first contact of humans with aliens, it starts slow but finds a comfortable pace and is an excellent read. It strikes the balance between story and science that I like. It also had a “goose bump” moment that I had to go back a read multiple times. Hopefully you know what I’m talking about, a moment that takes a great book and elevates into rarefied air. (One of my favorite “goose bump moments” was in Crichton’s Timeline, when the students find the professor’s note, “Help me,” written 400 years in the past. I loved that moment.) I’m recommending The Mote is God’s Eye to anyone who’ll listen.

Having finished Mote, I’m now moving on to another couple of classics. I have both 1984 and Brave New Worldin the queue. Another book I’m ashamed to say I never read, 1984,was riveting (I just finished it) but a tad depressing. I’ve moved on to Brave New World and then it’s on to the stack of graphic novels Nat provided me with.

Not a whole lot new on the TV consumption. I’m still watching Prison Break and Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles on Fox, and the trifecta of Earl/Office/30 Rock on Thursdays. I’ve said it before and I’ll keep saying it: 30 Rock is my favorite show on TV. We got hooked on Dexter earlier this year and we’re anxiously awaiting the next season (we’re catching it on CBS, as we don’t have Showtime).

On the music front, I haven’t been listening to much new stuff. The newest couple of groups I’ve been listening to have been Bodies Without Organs, a swedish Europop group I came across on last.fm. I can’t find much of their stuff on iTunes or Amazon, but YouTube has a lot of their stuff (my favorite being “Chariots of Fire“). Another group I recently start listening to is Clutch. I love the lead singer’s voice, and any band that performs a song called “What Would a Wookies Do?” is hard to pass up.

So that’s quite a bit. Hopefully I can do these more regularly so I don’t have so much to catch up on. I’ll let the other guys chime in, as well.

I’d like to know what have you been consuming?

(Image Credit: Stacks from Patrick Gray Illustration’s photostream)